Behind the Agendas of International Saviors of Africa

It is ridiculous oftentimes to seat down and reflect on the worldâ€™s famous celebrities and their often empty and spurious concerns for Africa.

Personally, I cast a serous doubt over the whole issue. In the scale of 1â€”10, I rate these concerns 10 on the negative. The reason why famous people around the world wish to save Africa has both surprised lots of critical minded Africans and non Africans alike. So many religious and circular non-governmental organizations claim to be called by God and the dictates of their moral scruples to save the entire African continent from what they perceive as apparent tailspin down to a miserable crash. The question arises, do they really care for Africans or do they care for themselves. What are the motifs behind this global â€˜generosityâ€™ to Africa? My argument is this. The only way they could help Africa is to pressurize their countries to have a just and fair dealings via international diplomatic sincerity, campaign against the years of unfair trade policies which exploit less powerful nations and the destruction of unjust global structural injustices which most of them live to benefit from. Finish! Any other thing they do is nothing but a vain boost of egos and media self aggrandizement’s. Nothing more!

A closer look at the worldâ€™s stage would reveal that there is obvious hypocrisy of the world communities when it comes to their bilateral relationship with African nations. The world as it is, especially the powers that be, has never been sincere to Africa. The seemingly genuine and humane international sympathetic outreach, which is basically expressed in bogus aids and unprecedented money lending, dimmed as a help to alleviating the so called woes and miseries of Africa is quite debatable. The point that the more advanced countries ought to get right is this: Africa is not poor. Africa is among the richest continent when it comes to abundant natural resources. She has timber, potash, uranium, magnesium, diamond, natural gas, coltan, copper, cobalt, cassiterites, zink, iron ore, cotton, cocoa, the list is endless. Â And there are numerous more resources yet to be discovered and unexplored.

Looking at things closely, one wonders what this global frenzy and competitive rush to give aid to Africa implies. My point is this; donor countries often have hidden agendas. They want to maintain and strengthen their national interests within the continent. Simple! They also want to control and subjugate Africa as parts of the extension of their dominance. There is this giver-stronger-receiver-weaker sort of idea. In this case, the miserable beneficiary of the acclaimed financial supports (Africa) becomes the orchestrated structural victim and pauper of the more developed donor nations.

If foreign aids have genuine intent, it would have transformed Africa beyond the imaginable dream since the inception of the idea. I am a strong critic of showering aid to Africa. Instead, industrialized nations should hearken to the voice of moral reason and act responsibly when it comes to removing certain bureaucratic bottlenecks and government policies that creates unfair bilateral international trade arrangement. Also, they should implement the already existing laws that automatically favor the African nations. There is this slave-master relationship in international trade involving countries.

Â Africa is not doomed be dependent on aids for her future. Let there be an equitable trade relationship which in turn boosts local development, create sustainable jobs, and uplift the continent from her underdevelopment slum. One thing is certain, the more these foreign nations give aids, the more Africa becomes crippled with debt. Her future would also be staked at the mercies of her benefactors. And, the more she is being made to become subservient to her debtors, the more her resources are being exploited as a way of reparation her unable-to-pay-debt. . Most of these countries extending the â€˜redemptiveâ€™ arms of financial friendships often have refused to change their trade policies with Africa which indisputably are uneven and unfair. Thus most of the African resources are not often used for the improvement of the lives of the Africans; they end up enhancing the standard of life within richer and exploitative nations.

While Africa is struggling to emerge from the debris of slave trade, colonization, military dictatorship and massive underdevelopment, many warped-minded people has vowed to grasp the opportunity to scavenge whatever they dimmed of private, corporate of national interest. After all, TIA (This is Africa) which is so porous to all forms of unchecked exploitation.

In the most recent time, we have seen that as India and China are gradually attempting to join the game of the world superpowers, these two nations too have picked up a tremendous interest in Africa. China is extending her financial aid to Africa as well. This makes some of us cringe. Ndigbo has a saying: nne ewu na ata aghana, nwa ya nâ€™ene ya anya nâ€™onuâ€”when the goat is chewing the cord, her kid would be watching and learning. That is exactly what China is doing with her aid to Africa. She is learning to play the game of the world powers. As a matter of factual statement, the president of the peopleâ€™s republic of China had reiterated that his country would double its aid to Africa in 2009. Waoo! Let nobody be quick to call China saint. The country has a huge appetite for African resources to sustain the spate of its 21st century rapid growth. As for Chinaâ€™s seemingly friendship to the continent, the logic is simple. Already, the world powers are already criticizing the Chinese presence in Africa. Perhaps this is borne out of jealousy that their neo-colonial territories are being intruded upon and invaded by their worst nightmareâ€”Chinaâ€™s global expansion. To taint her image bad, China has been accused of arms supply to Africa. This they claim fuels violence, regional instability and political tension. To act like a saint and shift the worldâ€™s attention from her enormous economic appetite in Africa, China has resorted (just like other powerful nations before her) to giving aids to help in the â€˜African development initiative and poverty reductionâ€™. What sort of deceptive strategy is going on here?

Well, the world has never been fair to the weak. Africa is weak presently and she needs to stand up or else die forever. Foreign interest are swarming her as ants swarm a kill and pilfering the dismembered parts to their bunkers. This 21st century is no time for Africa to sleep. It is not a time for the UN, or the EU or America or the fast developing South East Asia to dictate developmental initiates in African continent. It is a time for Africans to develop Africa. Every nation in the world has their problems and concerns. And if they try to help Africa, it is only because they have interest in her.

It is unquestionable that Africa countries have made major changes in the process of democratization. But no one refutes that fact either that Africa as a continent still has a very long way to cover in her struggle to parallel with the rest of the stronger nations around the world. She still has to create violence-free environments that support opportunities and sustainable development. She still needs to fight massive corruption, disease, joblessness, ignorant and so on and so forth. But she should learn not to rely on foreign powers to provide every solution. Since her relationship with these powers are based on inequality, deception, exploitations and neo-colonialism.

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